Quotes from Pierre Bayle

If an historian were to relate truthfully all the crimes, weaknesses and disorders of mankind, his readers would take his work for satire rather than for history.

It is thus tolerance that is the source of peace, and intolerance that is the source of disorder and squabbling.

There is not less wit nor less invention in applying rightly a thought one finds in a book, than in being the first author of that thought.

It is thus tolerance that is the source of peace, and intolerance that is the source of disorder and squabbling.

The furnace of affliction refines us from earthly drossiness, and softens us for the impression of God's own stamp.

In matters of religion, it is very easy to deceive a man and very hard to undeceive him.

There was no other God, religion, or lawful magistracy, than conscience, which teaches all men the precepts of Justice, to do no injury, to live honestly, and give everyone his due.

I am a good Protestant, and in the full sense of the term, for from the bottom of my soul, I protest against everything that is said, and everything that is done.

It is pure illusion to think that an opinion that passes down from century to century, from generation to generation, may not be entirely false.

There is not less wit nor less invention in applying rightly a thought one finds in a book, than in being the first author of that thought.

I know too much to be a sceptic and too little to be a dogmatist.

I lay down the Position, That whatever a Conscience well directed allows us to do for the Advancement of Truth, an erroneous Conscience will warrant for advancing a suppos'd Truth.

There is no less invention in aptly applying a thought found in a book, than in being the first author of the thought.

The antiquity and general acceptance of an opinion is not assurance of its truth.

Properly speaking, history is nothing but the crimes and misfortunes of the human race.

If an historian were to relate truthfully all the crimes, weaknesses, and disorders of mankind, his readers would take his work for satire rather than for history.